Monday, December 11, 2017

GLOGgin' Frostgrave 'n' Shit

i AM SADDENED THESE DAYS BY GENRE PURISTS. I don't know why I need to keep saying this. The same thinking that lead to Dragonlance. The same thinking that took all the fun out of Rogue Trader and turned it into 40K 8th edition, where none of the figures/characters have much in the way of personality but many of them have skulls and pointy bits.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I picked up Dungeon Crawl Classics almost totally since Daniel Bishop's The Thing in the Chimney impressed me so much with its sacred reverence of Dentist Elves and disregard for hard-fantasy tropes. Since then, it's (I mean DCC) spawned a whole lot of great stuff, but I still see a trend toward (in the DCC community on G+ anyways) new folks clinging to 3e and PF ways of thinking, and also maybe can we just agree that a Warforged or whatever the fuck it is could just be an android or a robot (total non-sequitur I know)

It's actually made me shrink away from the DCC people, whereas I am fully aware that I ought to dig in and prevent the steady slide that MCC will surely prompt into (even though the book explicitly says to mix it up) THIS IS FANTASY and THIS IS SCIFI camps.

Anyways, trying to drift away from G+ gaming (keeping a tenuous hold on friendships which are the parts of Google that I do value) and move more toward a face-to-face gaming existence, even though I don't have much in the way of time these days. Joined a local club where we've had a Blood Bowl tournament (Blood Bowl, by the way, has kept its sense of humor for almost the entirety of its run), and this weekend we're starting a Frostgrave campaign.

A nice thing about Frostgrave is that it's relatively inexpensive, totally modular, simple, and nicely incorporates skirmish rules and roleplay-type advancement. And it hints that although the magic system upon which it is based (totally simple BTW) is fairly comprehensive, it also is open to much embellishment, even in the scope of its own add-ons. I mean, every so often in the official add-ons a new school of magic in addition to the regular available ones pops up. Astromancy, for example, is described as a "lost" school of minor magic.  I like this way of thinking, and I will tell you why. It's because MazeRats, Into the Odd, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and a couple of other systems sort of do away with "official interpretations" of comprehensive magic, and sort of let you fiddle with it.

A really good guy in this regard is +Arnold K, who is not only a Muscle Wizard but also a very novelly-thinking and creative dude. He's got a RPG system that is great, but his Wizards system really shines in that it gives one much much leeway in terms of weirdness.

I'm thinking of adding several minor schools of wizardry to Frostgrave, including weird spells and side-quests and such.

Taffimantics
Sewage Enchanter
Sciencology
Coffeetologists
Dentitrics
Black Sous Chefery
The Thousand Paths of Ukulele Magic

I mean, whatever. It doesn't matter as long as it's fun.

I feel like none of these ideas are worth sharing anymore. It's this shitty snow. Snowomancy. That is definitely a thing. Constructs that are snowmen. Depression Magick. Malaisorcery

More later maybe if I can get a salad in me on my break

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